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10 Dec 2016 2:31:55pm

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Hi Shelly,

I think your last point is part of what Alistair is attempting to address. ie the ordinariness of faith / belief.

Dawkins et al have characterised (charactertured) "faith" as a somehow uniquely religious attribute. Likewise they refer to "religious belief" as somehow different to the usual way we use the term when we say "we believe that this seriously will in all probability get me safely to my destination".

One of Alistair's points is that all humans exercise belief/faith on a regular basis, when we put trust in things or facts we can not be 100% certain of.

This includes our world views, whether they include or exclude God. We do not have 100% knowledge, so we are exercising an element of belief or faith in living our lives in line with world views we can not completely validate.